The BJP is inching towards forming the government in India’s smallest state, with just two or three seats short of the magic figure of 21 in the 40-member legislative Assembly, though the possibility of a hung Assembly cannot be ruled out yet. Till 11.00 am, the Congress was leading in 13 seats.

Bad news for the BJP was that chief minister Pramod Sawant was trailing from his constituency Saquelim.

While the Trinamul Congress has so far failed to take lead in any of the seats the party contested, its ally, the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, was leading in five seats which could prove crucial in the case of a hung Assembly.

Trinamul had made overtures to the Congress for a pre-poll alliance but was snubbed as the former has actively poached Congress leaders in Goa, Assam, Meghalaya apart from its home state Bengal.

A comparison of the vote-share shows that BJP has so far received 34.40 per cent of the votes while the Congress managed 23.57 votes. In between them the Aam Aadmi Party, which is leading in one seat and the Trinamul Congress have got over 11 per cent votes, which clearly has hurt the Congress more than the BJP.

In 2017, the Congress had emerged as the single-largest party with 17 seats but failed to form the government as the BJP’s backroom parleys ensured defections from its own ranks as well as other smaller parties in the state. If the Congress manages to reach close to the BJP's tally it will be a sort of electoral miracle. From 17 MLAs in 2017, the party was reduced to just two legislators and has since focussed on rebuilding the party without taking back any of the defectors.

Though the party is still far short of the magic figure, it has deployed former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and the Karnataka Congress strongman D K Shivakumar to stitch together a possible post-poll alliance, something that it had failed to do five years ago. The Congress candidates have been kept in a resort to prevent any attempts by the BJP to poach while opening back-channel dialogues with other smaller parties.

Sources said the Congress has already sought an appointment with the governor P.S. Sreedharan Pillai for later today.